Not Intent on Arriving

Our time in Cortona was coming to an end.  The time had been spent wonderfully.  We took a day trips to Florence and Siena, which lived up to the expectations of the kids in more ways than one.  Travis and Lowell both purchased nice, leather jackets and treated us to a fashion show that evening at the hotel.

The cities were packed, but not overwhelmingly so.  It was a bit weird for me to be back in Florence, where I had spent more than a semester just over a year and a half ago (seems like just yesterday).  But some things never change.  I still saw the crazy woman I walked past, every time I headed to Ponte Vecchio.  When the kids had free time for shopping, I took a trek up the hill to Piazza Michelangelo, my favorite spot for thinking.

Then, I was super excited to take my kids to the little restaurant where I passed many a lunch hour during my time in Florence.  It was right on the street where Middlebury has it’s home in Florence (Via Degli Alfani).  But, I was bummed out because they had a special that day of a cheeseburger with french fries that the kids snapped up.  Nooooo!!!! American-style food.

Anyways, Florence was gorgeous, even if we didn’t get to spend enough time there.  One night as we’re back in Cortona, we happen upon this classical music concert.  It’s set in this beautiful church, right in the center of town.  The kids (much to my surprise) love it.  The music is very classical and traditional.  They wish we stay longer.  One of the girls, Kelly, notices a group of monks outside and tries to get them to chant.  It goes horribly badly.  They don’t chant and she’s horribly embarrassed.  Here begins our “chance encounters.”

Her embarrassing request out of the way, Kelly just wants to forget about it.  The next day we do this beautiful walk to a monastery in the Tuscan countryside.  Once we arrive, who do we meet?  The very same monks Kelly ran into before. She’s embarrassed, but they don’t chat.

As I begin to get over my laughing, something happens that startles me.  We get back to the hostel, now called the “brothel” by my kids, and I hear that a group of Americans is coming.  I’m thinking, “that’s cool the kids haven’t seen Americans for a while, maybe they can make friends.”

These Americans come in and take up the entire room that leads to my room.  It’s kind of awkward actually.  I talk to them though and discover they come from the private school that was right next to my high— The Landon School. The world is a small place.

And it gets even smaller.  Two days later.  The group is getting on the train to head down to our homestay in Cosenza.  We’re waiting.  Two minutes before the train pulls up a man arrives at the platform, running.  Who is he?  The same monk Kelly had spoken to before!

Hello Seattle!

Yes, that’s right.  I’m really excited to let everyone know that I’ll be moving out to the West Coast at the beginning of September for an undetermined amount of time.

It’s a decision I’ve been thinking about for a while, but one that I’ve only made recently.  There are a bunch of reasons. First, it will be awesome to be back out with Darcy and her family.  But, secondly, the West Coast represents a new challenge for me and an environment that’s incredibly different from the East Coast.  I’m excited to give this coast it’s fair shot.

To answer questions right away, no, I don’t know what I’ll be doing yet.  I’m hoping to find a job in the next couple of weeks.  If not I’ll figure it out when I get out there.

Yes, this is crazy.  Yes, this is adventurous.  But that’s why I want to do it.  I’m young once and I want to take advantage of my youth to try a bunch of crazy things.

After all, I’m not intent on arriving.  So for now, Hello Seattle!!

We all remember the days of elementary school lunches or for that matter cheap, gross food called “mystery meat.”  My kids had a traumatic experience during one of our evening meals in the hostel in Cortona.

First, I’d like to diverge for a second and just talk about portion sizes.  There is a huge difference between Italy and the United States regarding portion sizes.  The most notable difference lies with pasta dishes.  Italians think of pasta as one part of the meal and limit the amount of pasta they give between 80 and 100 grams.  That’s around 3 ounces for you Americans out there.  Whenever I go to Italian restauarants in the USA, I feel like I’m drowning in pasta.  Also, Italians will walk off every bit of that pasta just getting around.  Below is a rough illustration of the difference in portion size that I’m talking about.

An Italian Portion of pasta

An "American" portion

Now of course these pictures are hardly scientific.  But, I would bet that people who studied abroad with me and kids on my trip would back me up on this observation.  Anyone want to weigh in?

Back to the story in question.  That night, we had a delicious “primo piatto” or first plate of pasta with a fresh tomato sauce.  Then, came the mystery meat.  Now, to be clear, the meat did not resemble the color, texture, taste or anything of the mystery meat from elementary school days past.  But, the kids had no idea what it was.

I had spoken to Sergio beforehand, so I knew.  It was chicken that he had prepared quickly by breading it and frying it on the stove.  It was good.  The kids, however, wanted to debate and had no bloody clue.  I decided to let them sweat, and figured I would eventually tell them.  Then, the magic happened.

In walks this sweet, older lady who does some cooking and cleans the hostel daily.  She speaks no English, but is very anxious to communicate with the kids in whatever way possible.  She approaches them, notices they haven’t finished the meat and reassures them.  What she says is, “Gato. Meow!”  Gato, of course, means cat.

I wish you could have seen the color drain out of their faces.  Some of them looked as though they were going to vomit. I prepared the kids for a lot, but eating cat?  Well, what she meant was, “Don’t worry if you don’t finish because I’ll give the leftovers to the cat.”  I communicated this and they went back to eating.  Some color returned to their faces.

Perhaps some of them remember how one Italian chef got into hot water earlier in 2010 for his culinary choices.  Yum!

It’s out first night in Cortona.  Everyone’s spirits are high.  We have a nice dinner at our hostel prepared by Sergio, the crazy man who runs the joint.  Pasta with tomato sauce and some form of bird meat.  The group cannot decide what type of meat it is.  It’s good though, and that’s the most important thing.

I send the group back upstairs to get ready for our evening passeggiata.  On the agenda is finding ice cream and touring the center of the city, which none of us have ever seen before.   As we’re getting ready though, we hear incessant squawking coming from a staircase located right outside the boys’ room in the hostel.  We decide that we must investigate.

More precisely the kids decide that they want to investigate.   I only heard them say that they were going to go down into the creepy cellar place.  So they begin the walk down, slowly inching down the staircase.  One at a time.  Careful not to make too much noise.  Afraid of what they’ll find on the other side.

I come to the top of the stairs and look down at the six of my kids creeping down the stairs.  They see me.  We make eye contact.  I scream.

I wish I had taken a picture of their reactions.  Mouths were open. People lurched back away from the mysterious noise that they could not place.  I thought one person hit their head and felt bad.  The screaming continued (from the kids now) for a good 30 seconds.  I felt powerful.

Those noises?  Pigeons.  Sergio keeps a bunch of pigeons down in his basement, because that’s a normal thing to do.  I was able to confirm, mainly to appease the kids’ minds, that the meat we ate was chicken.

Later that night we made it into the park of the city.  It’s a beautiful area complete with a fountain and also a large pool. More on the pool to come.  As we find a spot to sit in the amphitheater we find our new nemesis.  Well at least for the moment nemesis.  He is about 10 years old and a native of Cortona.  As we walked in, his faced perked up and he bounded over to us.

In the most broken English possible (and I want everyone to think of really bad Mario and Luigi accents here), he goes “Hiii five.”  Actually maybe it wasn’t Mario and Luigi, but rather Borat.  It was bad but my kids returned the favor.  We sat down and began to chat, when out of nowhere he comes again and runs through our group.  “Hiiiii five” is again the battle cry from him.

And that was it for the night.  I guess he had to go to bed.  However, my kids would get the last laugh.  They were in Cortona to take language classes after all.  In a couple of days they would encounter this kid again, and this time, would have the perfect phrase of their own.

After a hectic, but enjoyable, orientation the group headed off to our new home in the hills of Tuscany.  Cortona is a beautiful little city where the author of “Sotte Il Sole Tuscano” or “Under the Tuscan Sun” still lives.  It’s a tiny little place with an official population of 23,000 people, but an unofficial total closer to 8,000.  During the summer, thousands of tourists from across the world (we saw Japanese, Chinese, French, German, Mexican, Spanish, American, and other tourists) flock to this tiny little town for a taste of Tuscany.

The view from Cortona

From the main piazza one can look out and see two dormant volcanoes and the famous Lake Trasimeno.  The area is beautiful and allows easy access to famous cities like Florence (1 hour away) and Siena (1.5 hours away).  The main piazza hosts dozens of weddings a year (sometimes it seems like dozens a day) complete with the traditional red rice.

Tourists head into the main piazza of Cortona

The group would stay in a truly unique hostel for our time in Cortona.  The kids would ultimately call it the “brothel,” though I have no idea why they decided to call it that.  All of the boys shared a single room, as did the girls.  I had my own space, but it was a smaller room inside a larger room.  As a reult, I sometimes would have to pass by other guests in order to arrive at my space.

So that’s a brief outline of where we would spent 1.5 weeks learning the langauge.  More on the specifics of our visit shortly. Also, the title of the post refers to a really popular song in Italy that I heard for the first time in Cortona.  I find it really annoying, but the Italians all loved it.

You can find the link to the song here.  Ciao!